I thought the first time that I went to the opera that it would spoil Shakspere--how could it do otherwise? I asked. Could supreme perfection be improved upon? Before the balcony scene had come to an end I found that I had never before understood the glory of the poem.
Ah, if you could understand what love means, my Phyllis, you would appreciate the poem and the music; the note of doom runs through it; that--that is wherein its greatness lies--passion and doom--passion and doom--that is my own life--the life of us women. We live in a whirlwind of passion, and fancy that we can step out of the whirlwind into a calm at any moment. We marry our husbands and we fancy that all the tragedy of human passion is over so far as we are concerned. 'The haven entered and the tempest passed.' Philip Marston's terrible poem, --you have read it,--'A Christmas Vigil'? 'The haven entered,'--the whirlwind of passion has been left far away, we fancy. Oh, we are fools! It sweeps down upon us and then--doom--doom!"
"My poor dear, you are talking wildly."
"If you only understood--perhaps you will some day understand, and then you will know what seems wild in my speech is but the incoherence of a poor creature who has been beaten to the ground by the whirlwind, and only saved from destruction by a miracle."
She had sprung from her place on the sofa and was pacing the room, her diamonds quivering, luminous as a shower of meteors--that was the fancy that flashed from her to Phyllis. Meteors--meteors--what a splendid picture she made flashing from place to place! Meteors--ah, surely there was the meteor-bird flashing across the drawing room!
"Come and sit down, my dear Ella," said Phyllis. "You are, as you know, quite unintelligible to me."
"Unintelligible to you? I am unintelligible to myself," cried Ella.
"Why should I be tramping up and down your room when I might be at this very moment----" She clutched Phyllis' arm. "I want to stay with you all night," she whispered. "I want to sleep in your bed with you, Phyllis. I want to feel your arms around me as I used to feel my mother's long ago. Whatever I may say, you will not let me go, Phyllis?"
"I will load you with chains," said Phyllis, patting her lovely hair--it was no longer smooth. "Why should you want to go away from me?
Cannot we be happy together once again as we used to be long ago?"
"How long ago that was! And we read 'Romeo and Juliet' together, and fancied that we had gone down to the very depths of its meaning. We fancied that we had sounded the very depths of its passion and pathos.
We were only girls. Ah, Phyllis, I tell you--I, who know--I, who have found it out,--I tell you that the tragedy is the tragedy of all lovers who have ever lived in the world. I tell you that it is the tragedy of love itself. 'Gallop apace, ye fiery-footed steeds!' That is the poem that the heart of the lover sings all day--all day! I have heard it--my heart has sung it. I have heard the passionate gallop of those fiery-footed steeds. I have listened to them while my heart beat in unison with their frantic career--all day counting the moments with fiery face, and then--then--something that was not passion forced me to fly from it for the salvation of my soul. I was a fool! Why am I here, when I should be where he---- What is the hour? Why, it is scarcely twelve o'clock! Did I say nine in my letter? What does it matter? I wonder if on that wonderful night--Gounod translated its glory into music--Juliet kept her lover waiting for three hours."
"What are you doing?" cried Phyllis, rising.
Ella had picked up her theatre wrap--it was a summer cloud brocaded with golden threads of quivering sunlight, and had flung it around her.
She held out a hand to Phyllis. Phyllis grasped her round the waist.
"Where are you going?" she said.
"To hell!"
She had whispered the words, and at their utterance Phyllis gave a cry of horror and covered her face with her hands.
Had she seen a suggestion of the satyr in the expression of that lovely face before her?
In the pause that followed the sound of footsteps upon the stairs outside was heard; the sound of footsteps and of men's friendly laughter. Some persons were in the act of ascending.
"My God!" whispered Ella. "He has followed me here!"
"Hush!" said Phyllis. "Papa is bringing someone to us."
"Whom--whom?"
They were both standing together in the middle of the room, both having their eyes fixed on the door, when the door opened and Mr. Ayrton appeared, having by his side a man with iron-gray hair and a curiously pallid face.
At the sight of that man Ella's hands, that had been holding her wrap close to her throat, feeling for its silver clasp, fell limp, and the splendid mass of white brocade slipped to the floor and lay in folds about her feet, revealing her lovely figure sparkling from the hem of her dress to the top of her shapely head.
